"I'm one of the lucky ones," she told "Good Morning America" on Tuesday, in her first post-surgery appearance. "It was shocking. I never thought I would hear the word cancer in relation to myself."

The mother of four, who married David Charvet in August 2011, hopes others will learn from her story.

"The message really is about preventative health because I had no symptoms," Burke-Charvet explained. "And generally, thyroid cancer is very subtle symptoms. I went for a regular physical -- my early physical."

When the former Playboy model shared the news of cancer on her Modern Mom blog Nov. 8, she expressed her concern about having a scar on her neck after surgery.

"I need to have thyroid surgery, a thyroidectomy, which means that I am going to have a nice big scar, right here, across my neck," she announced. Before the procedure, Burke-Charvet also tweeted a "last look" at her neck.